Jacquielynn Floyd's outlook on murder

I wasn't aware that you could admit you were wrong for doing something, then admit you weren't going to change the next time you told a similar story.
Jacquielynn Floyd begins her article (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/101607dnmetfloyd.341673a.html) concerning the death about Sarah Walker by saying she was wrong. It was blown out of proportion. We assumed too much. She referenced a "celebrity medical examiner," which left me wondering if you can get that inscription on a degree. But she didn't acknowledge that she would treat a similar story any differently come next time.
Unfortunately for those of us who want to see everyone included, we have to deal with around the clock news networks. The DMN is no exception a group that includes CNN 24 hour news, Fox News, and the rest. Everytime there is an attractive looking murder, at least in the eyes of the people telling the story, the story just won't end. We spent about two months talking to every single person involved in the Natalee Holloway case last year. How many murders were committed in the U.S. alone during that time? As I recall, nothing else mattered to newscasters during that time. My apologies go out to Natalee and her family, but no one deserves that much press coverage over anyone else.
So Floyd realizes that she was wrong. However, something makes me think that she has no problem getting it wrong again, all in the name of a "compelling" story.

Porn in Ads

Finally, it's here. The day to write about porn for a class. I thought it would feel different.
The Ravenstoke documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNnkIww7Gwk) is another extension of America's uphill struggle for giving into temptation to make ads so ridiculous that they just aren't in good taste anymore. The Axe ads for "Bow-Chika-Wow-Wow" are behind a funny concept, but their website, www.axebcww.com, is just ridiculous. I do see the point of making ads that are crazy enough that people want to do their own imitations and ripoffs, but it doesn't mean that you can make any ad without thinking of consequences.
Even as a guy in the popular 18-34 demographic for advertisers and marketers, I can't even get into half of the scantily clad female ads that are out there. There have been great ideas that some people find distasteful, such as the Coors Light "twins" ad and the Bud Light "wingman" commercial, and even Axe has a funny idea every now and then. But women who are rooting around a town because men sprayed a scent is dumb, and the only thing that's dumber is animals having sex in the ad. It's also an insult to men's intelligence, like we can't understand an ad that doesn't have scantily clad women in it.
That having been said, I would like to address the Heineken keg girl commercial. It was referred to in AdAge as the most offensive commercial ever made. Although it is offensive, there's something about the ad that's attention-grabbing. When I close my eyes and think back to the ad, I don't see the girl. I kind of remember her face, but all I can think of is the color green and that dumb song behind it with the words "Heineken draught keg." With a different graphic, it's an excellent subliminal ad. You can't get it out of your head. Almost like sub-lymonal advertising from Sprite, but it associates Heineken further with green.

Diversity in Advertising. Sorta.

I was going to write about porn this week (how many times do you get to write about that in a class?), but I came across this ad in the process (http://www.aclu.org/graphics/4july_ad_lg.jpg). It's by the ACLU, so it must represent equality, right? Wrong. There are so many unequal scenes in this ad it's ridiculous.
The first one I see is with the gentleman in the middle with the turban on and how it corresponds to the copy. The copy reads, "In these difficult times, we must stay true to who we are." What the hell does that mean? Who are we talking about? Is it because we're at war? If we are, we should probably try to avoid alienating Middle Easterners and Asians at this time, thank God we've got the ACLU. But oh wait, the focal point of their ad is a Middle Eastern guy who no one is paying any attention to and is being alienated. Yeah, everybody's equal now. Thanks ACLU.
The second thing I see is that there are two different sizes of pictures. Does this mean the people in the lower pictures are less important and less comforting to look at than the people in the larger picture? Why are the only people who are communicating the people who are from the same ethnic background? My personal favorite is where the black family gets stuck in at the last second into the bottom right corner. I think about the group that put this together, and I can see them now. "Oh crap, we forgot to put more than one black person in. Is there room above the logo? Super."
Last, but not least, there is the terrible ad execution. Why didn't they make this one big portrait with everyone arm in arm smiling at the camera? Instead, it's a bunch of people Photo-shopped together that don't tie in together. People who are looking to the left and right aren't looking at the person next to them, they are staring off into space. As a result, people look even more separated. But, hey, it must be ok, because it's done by the always-correct ACLU.

KKK vs. Nazis-at a deaf college

I've seen a lot of weird stories over my lifetime, but I'm not sure I understand this one. According to CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/04/deafschool.racial.incident/index.html?iref=werecommend), a group of seven students at Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. held down a student and drew KKK and Nazi signs on him. Apparently, a dispute had risen between two groups in the dorms who called themselves "Nazis" and "KKK," according to the story.
What makes the story interesting is that probably not that the student who was held down was black, but that one of the kids holding him down was black. Was it a misunderstanding of history by that student? Was he part of the Nazi group and supporting the swastikas being drawn, and then there goes a KKK symbol, but hey who cares? Is there a chance that some of these teenagers are possibly mentally deformed and don't really know what's going on?
Two feuding groups can have a good time, but there is a line. That line was crossed when they named their groups "KKK" and "Nazi." Does this school not have any kind of active RA supervision? How in the world these kind of things happen is beyond me, but schools that are for the hearing impaired have to stay on top of these kinds of situations before they ever happen.